Mullins Center goes from court to rink in under 3 hours

Last weekend, a team at the Mullins Center at the University of Massachusetts faced a tough assignment. After a Minutemen basketball game wrapped up, the center had to be converted into a hockey rink for a night game.

It’s not only the athletes who get a workout on weekends like this.

Usually, the job requires about 20 employees who work for five to six hours, according to Nathanael Harris, the center’s director of marketing. Last Saturday, more than 60 people turned out to make the switch in under 2½ hours. A video on GazetteNET by Zachary Weishar shows this team in action. The video shows workers marking and storing individual pieces of the wooden basketball court and then laboring to set up all the elements of the rink and its surrounding enclosure. Harris said the center has to work the switchover in doubletime just once a year.